Dave is also founder of The Mascot Hall of Fame. It’s scheduled to open in Indiana in 2017. They said that he has run the Mascot Boot Camp for more than 20 years and it will continue at their new venue. Here’s a video for the 2016 camp.

In 2015 I did a series about crossover of fursuiting and professional sports mascots. Look for update articles next week with a Q&A from Uncle Kage, an MFF organizer, and Cornbread Wolf (who fursuits for fun at sports games.)

“Adrianne suspects that there’s another dimension to the series’s sustained popularity. Frog and Toad are ‘of the same sex, and they love each other… It was quite ahead of its time in that respect.’ In 1974, four years after the first book in the series was published, Lobel came out to his family as gay. ‘I think ‘Frog and Toad’ really was the beginning of him coming out'”…

It’s interesting to look at how anthropomophism, character and sexuality came together in simple friendship stories. You don’t need to know about the author for the stories to be just as good, but the writing is very personal. These are mainstream children’s books, but I might dare to say that the hidden meaning gives them more in common with furry fan fic than anyone but us would understand.

by Patch O'Furr

“What Is Furry Music?” It’s a topic that Rakuen Growlithe started on Flayrah. It can be music with furry themes, or music made by (or even popular with) furries, or both.

Rakuen dismissed much of the latter kind for not being furry enough. I don’t think that’s quite fair. Consider overlap with rave scenes and gaming. Music related to those things can carry furry culture or spirit without animal themes built in. Music has context – it even matters where you go for it (yay for dive bars!) Some classic electronic/rave music was made with animal sounds for their musical tones. Doesn’t that bring out a little furry spirit?

I’d love to get into this and get responses from Furry music makers about how they personally define it. This gets very much into “personal taste”, but that’s the fun of it. Just like tasting different foods, it’s hard to say anything is right or wrong.

Arts, music, furry, and other subcultures have many overlaps. A while back I covered the super incongruous overlap of furries and industrial music. (Part 1, part 2, part 3.) I liked contrasting the extremes of cold, robotic and aggressive vs. warm, fuzzy and cute themes. You could do this for many genres. How about heavy metal? It’s often associated with Wolves.

Here’s some personal favorite stuff that came out of 1970’s/80’s classic punk and goth.

I Wish I Woz a Dog, by Alien Sex Fiend. (It’s easy, be a furry.)

This is like the anthem for an underground sewer club full of feral furry rats and stray mutts. In the beginning of the song they’re banging on a real trash can. Then it revs up like a washing machine full of spikes. The drum machine and no bass/guitar-only sound makes exciting rawness.

It comes from a subculture at it’s most fertile. It’s because they’re in Furry Mecca, and 2016 is the Year of Furry, and these fans make effort like no others to spread the love. If you’re feeling sad or afraid, or negative or worried about the world, bring furries to make it better.

Fursuiting and Freedom of Expression: Anti-mask law challenged by Vermont Furs.

VermontFurs had frustration with getting their events shut down in the City of Burlington. Fursuits were banned for vague, unsubstantiated reasons. Supposedly, it was for protection from “panhandling” offenses.

VICE is digging on DeviantArt for unusual furry fetishes. This fellow fan enjoys expressing “objectophilia”. He has a rewarding relationship with his car. Thanks for visiting our garden, Vice – lots of special varieties grow here, but don’t poop in it.

by Patch O'Furr

You never know what Halloween will bring in San Francisco. You can tour an Erotic Haunted House based on “Dante’s Inferno”, at a landmark castle (used as a BDSM porn studio), full of circus performers ready to give an amazing show. That’s Hell In The Armory. It’s the only place around that has great job opportunities for evil masturbating clowns. I guess it’s a living in a dog-eat-dog economy, where workplaces are literally Hell.

It’s part of San Francisco’s lively scene of subcultural circus theater, avant-cabaret, and burlesque, that crosses over with comedy and music. If you’re bold enough to get a taste – soon you might be throwing your own ingredients into this strange, sexy mix of alternative media and shows.

by Patch O'Furr

Halloween treats: Popularity for Rocket Raccoon, and some looks at the culture of costuming.

Mom’s costume creation goes viral, ‘wins’ Halloween 2015. A very lucky kid in Michigan got to be an accurately-diminutive Rocket Raccoon, complete with moving jaw. It got shared on Facebook by the director of Guardians of The Galaxy. This isn’t claimed to be overtly “furry”, but when Mom makes cosplay outfits for Comic Con… it makes you wonder what research helped to build it from scratch.

UPDATE: The maker confirmed to me that Furry tutorials helped build it. I asked her opinion of furries, and she says:

It’s some tough work everyone does and all of you should be proud. I made so many mistakes because there aren’t a lot of tutorials for doing stuff like this. I honestly didn’t know too much about furries until I was trying to research how to make a movable mouth for my son.

So why does he still enjoy playing dress up at age 35? “I love how people react. If you dressed up as a character they love they come over and give you a hug. It’s just a good feeling,” says Harrison, who along with his girlfriend plans to dress up in a couples costume for Halloween this year: “Lady and The Tramp.” Burkholder thinks the trend of adults continuing to dress in costumes, for Halloween and otherwise, is due to “Gen X feels a little bit lost so what we’re doing is claiming a little bit of a community for ourselves, especially with cosplay. And also with modernity people move away from so they want to form a sense of community, so whether it’s videogames or cosplay it’s people coming together. And I like that.